“That's a situation that we know from basic glaciological theory leads to an unstable configuration,” Graham said. “As you retreat the ice into the interior of Antarctica, it opens up more thickness of ice to be exposed to the ocean and lost, so it's kind of like a runaway system, where you lose more and more and more over time."
The term originated from a journalist that joined research groups in Antarctica, according to Ted Scambos, a principal investigator for the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration’s Science Coordination Office.
Send an email
